The managing editor of Entertainment Weeklymakes an interesting point regarding a famous house in American television: the exterior shots of the Brady Bunch house don’t match the interior shots.

And I grew up obsessing over a particularly brazen TV blunder: The exterior and interior of the Brady Bunch house do not match. At all. Not one bit. In case you never noticed: The interior set depicts a soaring two-story home with the second story over the structure’s right side; the outside is a low-slung split-level with a second story over the left side. (In fact, the second-floor window was fake.) How could they let this happen? Sherwood Schwartz once explained to the Los Angeles Times that the San Fernando Valley house used for the exterior shots was chosen because “we didn’t want it to be too affluent, we didn’t want it to be too blue-collar. We wanted it to look like it would fit a place an architect would live.” In other words, the exterior struck the right emotional note for audiences, and logic be damned. I can live with that. In fact, audiences will forgive almost any lapse in logic if the story does its primary job well – and that is to move us, scare us, tickle us, and give us characters worth knowing. The Brady house made no sense, but I still wanted to live there. And while it may not be necessary to cross the Golden Gate Bridge to get to the San Francisco Airport (unless you’re coming from Sausalito), it makes for a nice aerial shot loaded with symbolism. The best purveyors of pop culture know that poetic truth trumps literal truth every time.

Six thoughts about this:

1. I’m not someone who looks for or particularly cares about inconsistencies in movies and television shows. And yet, this still seems pretty egregious: the sides of the house don’t even line up?

2. Is this house really befitting of an architect? Would any architect worth his salt really want to admit that he lived in a stereotypical split-level? While some might defend the ranch as an exemplar of post-World War II American life, are there people who defend the split-level?

3. The explanation from Sherwood Schwartz is very interesting: the home is supposed to invoke a certain American middle-classness. Another way to think about it is the home is supposed to invoke a particular emotion and then fade into the background.

4. I bet there would be a fascinating study in looking at TV and movie depictions of American homes. As Juliet Schor suggested in The Overspent American, the “middle-class house” on TV has really gotten big and more luxurious over the years.

5. The exterior of the house is interesting but what about the astro-turf lawn?

6. It can be a little bit strange to visit these television homes on the set. Two years ago, we toured the Warner Brothers studio and saw a number of sets. Here are three shots: the emergency room exterior for ER, Lorelai Gilmore’s house on Gilmore Girls, and their oft-used street scene.

After seeing these in person, I imagine there is some room for commentary about the reproducibility of more modern architecture, the impermanence of place, and how it can easily transition from one film to another TV show to a miniseries and so on…

I was glad to find your post! When I stumbled upon the supposed “floor plans” of the Brady Bunch house I struggled to understand how the layout matched the exterior photos.

Not only is the second story on the wrong side, but the front door seems to facing the wrong direction. In the floor plans, the door position has you facing the the direction of staircase. But the exterior warrants that you would be facing the railing side of the stairs upon entering the front door.

None the less, I remain fascinated with the Brady house. I always wanted to live in that house… all the rooms and levels.

This article was a great read. Back in 2005, I began using a CAD program to replicate both the interior and exterior versions of the Brady Bunch house just for kicks & giggles. The comparison is pretty interesting. And yes, no Architect worth his salt would have designed and built something so common. Yet we as T.V viewers never question this poor logic. Perhaps the illogic design of T.V architecture only adds to the charm and appeal of our favorite shows, the Brady Bunch being, perhaps, the prime example. Fun commentary! It isn’t my intention to troll, but I would live to have you watch my videos on Youtube, where I take you through both versions of the Brady Bunch house in virtual space. The YouTube user name is “Bradyhousetour,” and you can also find me on Facebook as “T.V House Historian.” I post tours of other TV homes from time to time as well, and am thrilled when other people enjoy my work. Again, great commentary!